Step 1. Before: Select a pertinent activity for your team.
Why spend the time, effort, and money on an activity if you can’t identify the business reason or team benefit you expect as a result? The best team-building activity can become the worst team-building experience when there is no clear objective. If all you want is to have some fun and kill some time, play a parlor game and enjoy. If you want to improve your team’s effectiveness, you need to select an activity that will give you your desired results!
Start with a clear objective in mind. What, specifically, do you want your team to learn or accomplish? Think about it. Your goal should be
Relevant and applicable to where they are as a team right now.
Something that you want to reinforce long after this activity.
Plan on this activity being one of many baby steps your team will start taking now. Remember, an effective team is built primarily on trust. Trust, and thus team-building, can rarely be accomplished in one giant leap.
Match your goal to the activity in this book that will best help you get the results you want. If there is more than one good match, do one activity now and another one at a later date.
Consider technological capabilities. For teams that are geographically dispersed (virtual teams), consider whether the technology you use includes video, audio, and/or text capacity. Select activities that are compatible with your technology so that it doesn’t get in the way of the team-building efforts.
A NOTE ON COMPETITION: Competition can be a good thing. It can excite, energize, and challenge people to participate better. Do not assume that competition naturally brings out the best in everyone, though. Competition can also be a bad thing. It can deflate, discourage, and create unnecessary, lingering conflict. As the final judge in competitive activities, you risk becoming “the bad guy” as well. So only you can say how competitive you want your team-building activity to be. The most important thing is to be deliberate in your decision, so you can justify it with a clear objective, if necessary. Consider:
The current level of competition within the team.
The emotional health of the participants in dealing with defeat.
How intimidating or intimidated the participants are.
Your ability to diffuse real conflict among the team.
How easy it will be for participants to cheat if they are geographically dispersed and how much the participants trust each other to play fairly.
Step 2. Before: Prepare for your team-building activity.
You want to make sure you are ready for everyone to have a great learning experience. Fifteen minutes of planning and preparation ahead of time may not guarantee success, but it will certainly help you prevent disaster. Your activity will be most effective if you go into it feeling competent and confident.
Read through the entire activity several times. Make sure you are clear on what is to happen, when, why, and how. Visualize that activity happening successfully.
Obtain all necessary materials. Check the materials to make sure they will work well for the activity. For example, see that the dates on the pennies are legible, test the markers for any that have dried out, make sure there are no cards missing from th...
